Firm restructures to diversify services.

"Practical solutions fast and on budget" has been DST Consulting Engineers motto since it opened its first office in Thunder Bay 30 years ago.

President Mike Fabius believes it's that promise to customers that has helped the company remain prosperous not only in Northern Ontario, but across the province.

DST is a firm of engineers, scientists and contractors that provides geoscience and related services like geotechnical and environmental engineering, materials sciences, highway engineering, green building technologies, mining engineering, surface and groundwater studies, aggregate resources, ground stabilization and drilling technologies.

As the company moves into the second phase of a corporate-wide reorganization, Fabius says customers can still rely on DST's 30-year promise. Now, however, that promise is coming from a company that is striving to become more streamlined and efficient as it faces the challenges in the new millennium.

Changes at DST began nearly seven years ago when the company started exploring expansion opportunities outside of Thunder Bay, Fabius says.

"Originally we set out to expand out of Thunder Bay in 1993," he says. "We set up different branch offices that worked as their own profit centres. It helped them to focus on developing their own local markets."

But because DST could offer such diverse services that were often unmatched by other engineering firms, the company soon found itself using the specialty resources of two or three branch offices for one major project.

"The old branch structure didn't make a lot of sense anymore," Fabius says.

It was then that he realized a change in corporate structure was necessary to maximize profitability and efficiency and to better service customers as well.

The result was the recent creation of a five-person management team to "focus on the big picture" and to fuel the company's growth.

Fabius describes DST as a "fairly ambitious" company with an annual growth rate of approximately 20 per cent. The newly formed management team will oversee major departments (building technologies, construction, highway services, environmental services and geotechnical services) to maintain this growth, and it will also share ownership to keep the company and its employees more accountable.

"Now we'll have three different sets of managers," Fabius says. "The highest (level of management) is for industry sectors, like pulp and paper, mining and government. Another is for the technical service sector, and the third will include the branch managers.

"It's another step toward the new structure and it allows us to bring in new positions to help integrate and we can build the necessary resources."

Fabius says DST is also striving to create a more staff-empowered environment.

"One person at the controls can't do it all," he says. "The empowerment end is where want to push things" while maintaining any pre-existing working groups.

"We want to ensure (group) structures stay strong and healthy."

Fabius says the new structure will allow the company to focus on the unique services it provides and stray away from traditional engineering firm services.

"One of our strategies for maintaining growth is diversification," he says.

"There are lots of ways to do it, but it's tough to identify to customers when there are so many different specialties."

The company's expertise in a variety of specialties, he says, is largely because of DST's roots in Northern Ontario, where diverse land conditions pose challenges.

"We're exposed to all kinds of conditions in Northern Ontario, from muskeg to rock. We know all the angles to come up with a solution and implement it. The knowledge of many different aspects of engineering reduces the need for more than one company."

Acquiring new businesses, he adds, is another means for growth. DST is already looking at buying an Ottawa firm specializing in "environmentally friendly construction."

The acquisition, he says, will further diversify an already multifarious company.